How Analysts Think: Decision Making in the Absence of Clear Facts

In this paper we present findings from our research into how criminal intelligence analysts make decisions in the absence of clear facts. We used the Emergent Themes Analysis method to analyze interview transcripts of seven analysts to discover how intuition, leap of faith and insight help analysts use suppositions to deal with missing or ambiguous data. We discovered that the sequence of cognitive acts - intuition, leap of faith and insight - is a reliable and helpful strategy analysts utilize to make decisions in the absence of clear facts. This finding suggests the importance for supporting decision making based on those cognitive acts in the system design.